Banyan

With respect to China

America and China may both find it hard to live up to their latest promises to each other

WHEN the flames of ardour have burned themselves out, some squabbling couples try to rekindle the embers with a second honeymoon. Some commentators say China and America are about to embark on their third. They rank President Hu Jintao's state visit to the United States, which ended on January 21st, alongside two previous milestones in China's re-emergence as a global power: Deng Xiaoping's American tour in 1979, just after the two countries normalised relations, and Jiang Zemin's trip in 1997, formally ending the chill that followed the Beijing massacre eight years earlier and a later showdown in the Taiwan Strait. The two countries' fervent renewal of their vows is good news. But it may not be long before the crockery is flying again.

Mr Hu has a rather dour, robotic persona—more bewildered bureaucrat than crowd-pleaser. It is hard to imagine him, like Deng, donning a cowboy hat. A visitor who announces a Chinese shopping spree worth $45 billion, however, is always welcome. But the euphoric reaction in parts of the Chinese press to his reception suggested that all it took to stem an alarming slide in China's relations with America over the past year was to pay Mr Hu the respect—to give him the 21-gun salute, the Maine lobster and that Asian notion of “face”—which China feels he deserves.

There were no protocol gaffes such as those that marred Mr Hu's visit in 2006, when at one point China's national anthem was described as that of the “Republic of China”, that is, Taiwan. The only questions for the trivia-obsessed were why he pitched up at a black-tie dinner at the White House in his salaryman suit, and whether Lang Lang, a Chinese pianist who performed at the event, was being deliberately offensive by playing a tune evoking Chinese heroism in the Korean war, when its soldiers were trying to kill Americans. Mr Hu himself lacks the spontaneity to put his foot in it, though the Chinese press did its bit to make it look as if he had by censoring some bland remarks about China's having “a lot of work to do” on human rights.

The visit was not all pomp and symbol. The joint statement it yielded skirted some thorny disputes, such as the value of China's currency. Yet even some of its worthy but empty pieties mattered to China, which liked the repeated references to “mutual respect” in areas such as the two countries' discussion of human rights. America liked China's promises on intensified military contacts and on public-procurement policies. And it was pleased to evoke a rare Chinese criticism of North Korea, however mild.

If the past is any guide, however, each side will soon feel the other is flouting the statement. By “respect”, China probably means refraining from, for example, calling for the freedom of Liu Xiaobo, the jailed dissident who won last year's Nobel peace prize, or protesting at the vindictive detention of his wife. China would also like it to mean abiding by the “Three Communiqués” (from 1972, 1978 and 1982) that are supposed to govern bilateral relations and that call for a steady reduction in American arms sales to Taiwan. But the nature of American politics, and, in the case of arming Taiwan, American law, gives American presidents little practical option but to aggravate China on these issues.

A further difficulty is the growing complexity of foreign-policymaking in China itself. One reason America is so keen on military dialogue, for example, is that the army is playing a bigger role. High-level talks were suspended for a year in protest at sales of weapons to Taiwan, but were resumed just ahead of Mr Hu's trip when Robert Gates, the secretary of defence, was in Beijing. China's army is planning to add impressive new capabilities—an aircraft-carrier, a “carrier-killing” anti-ship ballistic missile, and a “stealth” jet fighter—without offering much clarity about its strategic intentions. It tested the J-20 stealth plane during Mr Gates's visit, though Mr Hu, who heads the Communist Party's military commission, displayed (perhaps feigned) ignorance about the test. This did not build confidence of greater transparency.

Similarly, China, at America's insistence, expressed “concern” about North Korea's claimed programmes to enrich uranium. But the Communist Party's North Korea policy remains based on propping up its irksome little ally. To that end it fosters Chinese investment there, which makes it even harder to act tough. And China's promise not to “link its innovation policies to the provision of government procurement preferences”, implies ditching its “indigenous innovation” policy that discriminates against foreign firms. That will run into opposition from the interests that lobbied for the policy in the first place.

Blind faith

Even if there is good reason to expect China and America to start quarrelling again soon, they have at least tried to reassure each other over tenets of bilateral faith each has felt to be shaken. Angst as well as hope lies in the recognition in Barack Obama's state-of-the-union address this week that America is faced with a “Sputnik moment” as China rises. Yet the joint statement reiterated America's welcome for “a strong, prosperous and successful China that plays a greater role in world affairs”. And for all the effort China's armed forces are devoting to limiting America's freedom of action in the Western Pacific, China reciprocated its endorsement of “the United States as an Asia-Pacific nation that contributes to peace, stability and prosperity in the region”.

Each side is bound to doubt the other's sincerity; the global emergence of a power as big as China was never going to be smooth. The best that can be hoped is that the inevitable tensions are contained. And with a presidential election in America next year, as well as an awkward leadership transition in the Chinese Communist Party, each side has an interest in stopping their differences from becoming irreconcilable. A third honeymoon, however, seems too much to hope for.